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Arch Retail Systems WooCommerce Integration

Question

We are an IT company based in Botswana Southern Africa. We specialize in Native Mobile App development and e-Commerce website development.

We currently have a client who is one of the largest retail stores in the region. Our client wants to start selling their products online to their customers who include individuals and small retail stores. They already have an ERP System as expected, and they want to integrate their online store with the ERP System which is called ARCH Point of Sale.  ARCH is a widely used ERP System in Southern Africa.

We would like to get Arch Retail Systems integrated with our client's website which most likely will be WooCommerce.

We have been in communication with the Arch team, and they do have an eCommerce API which WooCommerce can use to talk with the the ERP.  Here is the scenario:

Environment:

  • ERP is called Arch Retail. It has an Arch eCommerce API installed by the ERP developers. It is set up on server A which is IIS.
  • ERP is accessible in read only mode, no writing. (This is a restriction from the Client. There might be an exception to send orders and other updates to the ERP, but this is not confirmed yet.)
  • ERP uses MS SQL database.
  • The website is a WordPress site, using WooCommerce to handle e-commerce operations. The site is installed on server B.

What needs to be done:

  1. Mass import of products and clients
    • Mass import about 28,000 products from the ERP to the website with their description, photo, price. (+ some product characteristics like color, format etc.)
  2. Regular updates from ERP to website
    • Product information (new products, pricing, stock) and client information (addresses, contacts, discounts) must be updated at least once a day.
  3. Stock management
    • In the spirit of updates described above, stocks on the website need to be synced to the ERP. I need suggestions as to the best way to proceed here about when to retrieve the information when user loads a given product page? When he checks out?
  4. MISC.
    • Code is needed but also suggestions for best overall results.
    • Communication needs to be top notch.
    • Other integrations with the same ERP will follow if collaboration is successful.

Please let me know if you are interested and can help us get Arch Point of Sale integrated with WooCommerce.  Thank you.

 

Answer

Yes, we would love to help you with your Arch Retail Systems integration!

I think it might be helpful to explain how a typical integration works.  We could then see if we can get with Arch Retail Systems to see if our typical flow works or if it needs to be modified.

The following article discusses how an integration between Arch Retail Systems and WooCommerce might work:

This flow is shown here as well.

Ideally, we would like to send the Order (and any Returns) down to Arch Retail Systems. Sending Orders down to a POS system will automatically decrement the inventory for the item(s) within the order.  Conversely, sending a Return down to a POS system will increment the inventory.

In general, we are sending Orders and Customer data down to the POS system after it has been shipped in WooCommerce.  To keep inventory in-sync between Arch Retail Systems and WooCommerce, we’ve developed something called Allocation.  Frankly, this is a brilliant feature and something you absolutely must read if you haven’t already:

Because we have this Allocation feature, we can send orders from WooCommerce to Arch Retail Systems after they’ve been shipped in WooCommerce. This simplifies the integration with Arch Retail Systems immensely as long as we can figure out a way to insert “completed” (sometimes called Invoiced) orders into Arch Retail Systems.

Here are some additional thoughts regarding your points above:

  1. Mass import of products and clients
    • Importing the products into WooCommerce shouldn’t be a problem.  We’ll, of course, do it using this integration after it has been built.
  2. Regular updates from ERP to website
    • Yes, for sure.  Frankly, this is pretty easy for us.
  3. Stock management
    • This is explained above.  Ideally, we would like to send the website orders to Arch Retail Systems, which should automatically update the inventory.
  4. MISC.
    • We’ve done a lot of these integrations and have a pretty good process to get you on-board and manage your project.  Please read:

You’ll find we’re experts at POS and ERP integrations; it’s something we've been doing for over a decade and have amassed a great deal of knowledge and technology doing 1,300+ integrations.  Here are just some of the articles that I can share with you that make us different.

You’ll love our WooCommerce Integrator Dashboard, which gives you an overview of the status of your integration.

I think the next step is to get with Arch Retail Systems to understand how we can make this integration work for them and your client of course.  Could you please ask your client to email Arch Retail System and CC me on the email?  I’ll reply to set a meeting between all parties.  Thanks.